Is Richard Goldstone a liar, an antisemite and a biased hater?

I understand some of that media bias now, ever since I chanced upon Phil Weiss' blog and learned that a tendency to report certain kinds of news makes you unpopular with editors. Ironically, it was American Conservative that published his woes

Thankfully now there is the internet and he can blog on issues of conscience and reach others like him, who put ethics in journalism over the next pay packet. What did people like Weiss do before?

Meanwhile:

One day Peter mentioned that the new owner had passed along one of these complaints and reminded him that the pro-Israel community was one he cared about. Peter said that he defended me, though he asked, “You’re not a Holocaust denier, are you?” “Of course not,” I said. “Good, I thought so.”
Click to expand...

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2007/jun/04/00014/
 
Last edited:
S.A.M. said:
You mean I should not assume that the biggest event of the year is front page news everywhere?
Click to expand...

The release of the Goldstone report made front page news in the US, if that's what you're referring to, and has appeared in the news regularly since. I'm unclear on why you're speculating on whether it - or anything else - made news. A quick search on Google News will reveal hundreds of US news articles on the Goldstone Report.

But as for "biggest event of the year:" really? Even if we assign UN human rights activities disproportionate importance, I'd still put the initiation of the first ICC trial or the issuance of arrest warrants for al-Bashir way ahead of this report.

S.A.M. said:
His bias is quite clearly towards Israel.
Click to expand...

It's unclear whether he has any bias, or who it would favor. There are countless reasons one could dream up as to why he might be biased against Israel (maybe he is opposed to the specific Israeli political factions associated with the Gaza war, or is just one of these "self hating Jews" you like to invoke).

S.A.M. said:
Even then, with all his inherent bias and his desire to make this report as easy for Israel as possible [according to his daughter, who made aliyah to Israel], the least devastating report he could come up with has painted not just the Gaza war, but the entire Israeli policy over the last two years as well as post war, as a "crime against humanity".

This is the softest lowest and least crime he could impute to Israel.
Click to expand...

There is nothing in evidence to support the premise that he is inherently biased and desired to make the report as easy for Israel as possible.
 
quadraphonics said:
....I'm unclear on why you're speculating on whether it - or anything else - made news.................... and desired to make the report as easy for Israel as possible.
Click to expand...


reread the thread and see if you can come up with the answers for yourself
 
Peace doesn't seem to be working for them, perhaps they should go back to all out war?

It seems like what both sides want. Let the desert run red.
 
The best posting I have seen on the Goldstone report [in its entirety]:

Throwing Judge Goldstone (and the Gazans) Under the Bus – Who Won and Who Lost

It took about a week to finish off Richard Goldstone and his Gaza Report. You have to give a lot of credit to the Netanyahu government. They get better at killing the messenger each time they do it. This time a few days of Israeli phone calls to the European capitals, intensive public relations, and a lot of help from the US government, did the trick. Hillary bought the Israeli line that acting upon the Goldstone Report would damage a (non-existent) peace process. As if the war crimes in Gaza had anything to do with any sort of peace process.

But an honorable mention and a big yashar koah goes to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, which buckled under "intense pressure" from the US, and agreed to delay deliberations on the report until March.

So who are the winners and losers in l'affaire Goldstone?

Well, the winners in no special order are the rightwing Israeli government and its rightwing supporters, the American administration, and Hamas. The first two are obvious; for Bibi and Hillary (and her boss), the Goldstone Report was a "distraction" from the main issue, which is how to pretend there is a peace process and to juggle at the same time.

And why Hamas? Because at the same time that the PA was capitulating to the Israelis and the Americans, much to the crowing of the Israelis, Hamas managed to exchange a videotape of Gilad Shalit for Palestinian prisoners. Moral of the story: kidnap Israeli soldiers, and you get a prisoner release. (It didn't take Khaled Mashal a long time to figure that out.) Collaborate with the Israelis, and you get bubkes, although I would like to think that at least some people of Ramallah will be well-rewarded for their efforts.

And how is this going to play in the Palestinian street? Do I need to spell that out for you? Just read the wise analysis by Amjad Atallah here.

The big losers, again in no special order, are Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, which have been quick to spin their decision as only a delaying tactic. Believe that, and I have a security fence you may be interested in.

Of course, their patrons, the Israelis Dons, spun the Palestinian surrender their own way. According to Haaretz

The Palestinian decision not to push the report was "proof that Israel was right not to cooperate with the investigation and that it was a political tool that can be blocked through diplomatic activity," a source said.

Good to see that the PA has joined the Coalition Forces.

Other big losers are the human rights organizations, the folks who care about little things like the death, dismemberment, and trauma of innocent civilians, and the destruction of their lives and property. What Israel, the US, and the PA proved today was that power trumps justice, that war criminals are held to account when and only when they are not friends of the big boys.

But the biggest losers, aside from the Gazans, are good people everywhere. We are taught that crime doesn't pay, that the bad guys will be punished, that pride goeth before a fall. It's doesn't get easier to learn that the bullies often get their way.

Of course, Torah teaches that the ledger is open, and that there is a hand that records the deeds and misdeeds. The ray of hope in all this is that nobody opposed to the Goldstone report, or for that matter, any of the human rights reports, disputed the facts therein. (I exclude the hardcore right-wingers and the Israeli government, which always dispute the facts.) The claims have been that the original mandate was biased, that the report lacked context, that its conclusions were over the top, that the UN hates Israel, yada, yada, yada. Discrediting the messenger is a good short-term tactic, but a lousy long-term one. So while I don't share the optimism of the last optimist in Israel, Gideon Levy, who thinks that the Goldstone report will affect future Israeli behavior, I am hopeful that a lot of people out there know a rat when they smell one.

And let's not forget a VERY BIG winner of throwing Judge Goldstone under the bus – the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions people. For we now know that the way to get results out of the Israeli government is through public action – and that action cannot be left to government actions, especially when the governments are serial human-rights violators such as the US, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.​

source: The Magnes Zionist
 
Last edited:
The lesson is you cannot complain about misdeads when your own hands are not clean. You cannot call the cops when someone steals your weed.
 
How about the many Palestinians who work in Israel? Would a boycot be good for them?
 
Is the Simon Wiesenthal Center still in the business of catching war criminals that escape justice? Could they be recruited for Gaza, d'you think?
 
In the category of "can this get any more ridiculous..?"

Michael Oren, who gave up his American citizenship to fulfill his zionist dream of being ambassador of Israel in the US, has written an opinion piece in The New Republic, comparing Richard Goldstone, jurist and anti-apartheid activist, to <drumroll>.............a NAZI!

"Recognizing the murder of six million Jews more than six decades ago is, in fact, vital for understanding the supreme dangers posed to six million Jews in Israel today by a nuclear Iran and by the Goldstone Report."

The Goldstone Report goes further than Ahmadinejad and the Holocaust deniers by stripping the Jews not only of the ability and the need but of the right to defend themselves… Ahmadinejad’s genocidal rhetoric and the iniquity of the Goldstone Report notwithstanding, Israel will, of course, continue to defend its citizens.
Click to expand...

http://www.tnr.com/article/world/deep-denial

These Israel firsters get more incredulous by the minute. Is there any likelihood that we'll ever see rationality in the I-P debate where the REAL victims ever get ANY consideration at all?
 
Curiouser and curioser:

"Goldstone is a small man, devoid of any sense of justice, a technocrat with no real understanding of jurisprudence," Peres told his Brazilian counterpart, adding that the South African jurist "was on a one-sided mission to hurt Israel."

Referring to Goldstone's recommendation to investigate possible war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, Peres said, "If anyone should be investigated, it should be him."
Click to expand...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1127695.html
 
Continuing fallout for Justice Richard Goldstone from the occasion on reporting the Gaza massacre of January 2008.

- In the face of intense pressure, South African judge Richard Goldstone has agreed not to attend his grandson’s bar mitzvah.

Following negotiations between the South African Zionist Federation and the Beth Hamedrash Hagadol in Sandton, an affluent suburb of Johannesburg where the event is to take place, an agreement was reached with the family that will keep Goldstone from attending the synagogue service early next month.

http://www.jta.org/news/article/201...ne-agrees-not-to-attend-grandsons-bar-mitzvah
Click to expand...

More: Zionists ban Goldstone

An agreement with the family, that Goldstone would not be in attendance at the synagogue service, was reached after negotiations between the SAZF and the Sandton Shul, where the event is due to take place. Avrom Krengel, chairman of the SAZF, who was reportedly not keen to reveal much, said: "We understand there's a barmitzvah boy involved - we're very sensitive to the issues; at this stage there's nothing further to say."

While Krengel said the SAZF had interacted on the matter with the chief rabbi and others, his organisation was "coming across most forcefully because we represent Israel". Goldstone was reluctant to reveal further details, and is reported to have said: "In the interests of my grandson, I've decided not to attend the ceremony at the synagogue."
Click to expand...

Apparently having moral integrity is incompatible with being Jewish
 
S.A.M. said:
I would be majorly surprised if the report even made the news there.
Click to expand...

And what if it makes the news? What of any UN report that makes the news? Simply its 'news' nothing more. There isn't any report that comes out of the UN that isn't suddenly gathering dust in some back room, reports don't lead to UN action nor does it change the political realities on the ground or the policies of other nations.

Think of Myanmar. How many reports have been written? What are the outcomes of these reports?

As for whether he is anti this or pro that, it doesn't really matter. UN officials live in a bubble in virtually every nation they go to. They read reports to make other reports and have very little direct contact with life on the ground or the people they claim to understand never mind the realities of their situations, so they are merely very well paid working tourists. I don't place too much energy on what any of them have to say as they know as little or as much as the average statistician. NGO's being far from perfect have a much more hands on approach, well at least they are closer to the ground and have a far better understanding of the nuances and complexities on local situations. And even they are full of shit at times:shrug:
 
Last edited:
S.A.M. said:
You mean I should not assume that the biggest event of the year is front page news everywhere?
Click to expand...

Sorry Sam I don't live year round in the US and it certainly wasn't 'the biggest event of the year' not by any means. The BBC worldwide service covered it as they cover everything else but it certainly didn't reach any stage of saturation coverage nor did it mention any more than the highlights. You are dreaming if you think that the Israeli/Palestinian issue is really of global significance outside of Israel and the muslim world.
 
Lucy, its rather strange that you would respond to some old posts on Goldstone to intimate that they don't matter. I for one, think the Gaza massacre was a turning point in Palestinian history and it will be people like Goldstone, who support Israel, that will be needed to tell the story of the Palestinians.

As for the global significance, the Goldstone report was so insignificant in the US that Congress was required to denounce it, at a time when the US has much bigger internal problems of its own. It will take time for the issue to reach dimensions where its about political opinion in the United States, but in todays climate, to quote Finkelstein, you cannot be young, Jewish and liberal and wear a tee shirt that says Go Israel, because there is the Goldstone report - there is the evidence that Israel went too far.
 
Last edited:
Hamas went too far, and they won't stop. If you don't want to provoke an army, everyone knows what not to do.
 
How they hate Goldstone

I think Israel and Zionism are stains upon Judaism. They bring no good to Jews, period.

For the past few days, many South African Jews have concerned themselves with a question perhaps better put to Talmudic scholars: Is it ever right for protesters to keep a grandfather from his grandson's bar mitzvah?

That grandfather is Richard Goldstone, one of this nation’s most eminent jurists and head of a United Nations investigation that said it found evidence of war crimes during Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Many of his countrymen not only took issue with the findings, they called the judge a traitor who had sold out his Jewish brethren.

(Bearak)​

Apparently, some Jews believe that failure to turn a blind eye to Israeli atrocities against humanity is a deep offense against Judaism. This is tragic, as it would fulfill some of the wildest fantasies of evil Jewish bloodlust spun by desperate anti-Semites over the course of centuries. It would cast Judaism as a religion that needs to commit, that depends upon, atrocities against humanity.

Next month, Judge Goldstone’s grandson is to celebrate his bar mitzvah at Beth Hamedrash Hagadol, an Orthodox synagogue in Sandton, a Johannesburg suburb. Ordinarily, this would be nothing but a joyous event, signifying the boy’s ascent into manhood.

But Jewish leaders here recently began to speak darkly among themselves of threatened disruptions to the ceremony. Their concerns were taken to the synagogue, and the anxieties of its leadership were then shared with the family.

In an e-mail message on Friday, Judge Goldstone, who is a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said, “Because of the threat of protests at my grandson’s bar mitzvah, I agreed in discussion with leaders of the Sandton synagogue that in the interests of my grandson, I would not attend the services.”

The source of those threats carries an air of mystery. The story was first reported in the South African Jewish Report. No one quoted in the article took responsibility for the threats or reliably pointed a finger elsewhere.

(ibid)​

Unreliable threats of protest and disruption, and the local synagogue asks a man to skip an important rite of passage for his own grandson. According to the Western Cape Council of the South African Zionist Federation, Goldstone is so despised among his fellow Jews that is presence would "rsult in an almost certain barrage of protesters".

If so, the protesters may have to come from within the synagogue itself. Others would find that the large white building was accessible only by a single narrow street, and private security guards would allow congregants to enter through a zigzag course of yellow iron gates.

But whatever their source, the threats were evidently taken quite seriously. Several Jewish leaders stressed Friday that the decision ultimately rested with the family — that no one had actually barred the judge from this happy event.

Warren Goldstein, the chief rabbi of South Africa, said he had been involved in discussions about the possible disruptions to the ceremony. A severe critic of the Goldstone Report, he has written that the United Nations has an “anti-Israel agenda,” and that the investigation was “merely a cover for a political strategy of delegitimizing Israel.”

But on Friday he issued a statement saying that he, like most involved, believed the judge should be allowed to attend: “It is simply a question of decency and compassion to the bar mitzvah boy not to ruin his day.”

(ibid)​

This is the disgraceful face of Zionism. This is the uncompromising, supremacist, hateful face of what modern Israel has come to stand for in its sixty-two years.

The Goldstone Report, released last September, concluded that, based on the available evidence, both Israel and Hamas had taken actions amounting to war crimes. But the findings focused mostly on the Israelis. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel later said, “We face three major strategic challenges: the Iranian nuclear program, rockets aimed at our civilians and Goldstone.”

Here in the judge’s home country, many Jews suddenly viewed him as a heretic. He was accused of faulty reasoning. He was accused of being co-opted. He was accused of being the worst kind of anti-Semite, a self-hating Jew.

But does that justify keeping him from the bar mitzvah?

“I want to speak as a grandfather,” said George Bizos, a well-known lawyer and friend of Mr. Goldstone. “I am shocked that pressure would be put on a grandfather not to attend an important ceremony in his grandson’s life. Those applying the pressure ought to hang their heads in shame.”

Justice Arthur Chaskalson, who served with Judge Goldstone on South Africa’s Constitutional Court, said the threats “reveal a level of bigotry and intolerance meant to shut down any diversity of opinion.”

He said he hoped his friend would reconsider — and come anyway.

(ibid)​

Then again, if Israel and Goldstone were Catholic, he would have simply been excommunicated by now. Analogously speaking, that is.

This isn't quite on par with, say, Westboro's praise of IED's and terrorists killing American soldiers outside the cemetery gates, but it's certainly up there on the list. It is unlikely that non-Zionist Jews will, in the long run, step down to match such despicable conduct, but neither is it impossible. Interesting, indeed, would be the scene if the new dialogue between Jews angry with one another was to harangue each other's grandchildren's induction to religious obligation. What future has Judaism should this become the way of things?
____________________

Notes:

Bearak, Barry. "South African Judge May Be Kept From Grandson’s Bar Mitzvah". The New York Times. April 17, 2010; page A1. NYTimes.com. April 17, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/world/middleeast/17goldstone.html
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top